


Lights Along The Path

by lafillechanceuse



Series: Nes Gadol Haya Sham 2016 [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Backstory, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Ktavnukkah 2016
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-26
Updated: 2016-12-26
Packaged: 2018-09-12 06:51:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9060712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lafillechanceuse/pseuds/lafillechanceuse
Summary: Dagna makes a discovery, Skinner makes a new friend, and Lace Harding makes something of herself. For the theme of 'miracles' for the 2016 Ktavnukkah writing challenge.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to go up yesterday, but ah well. So long as it's here, it's here.

The explosion rattled the hood of the forge.

Covering her head with both hands, the young dwarf hit the deck. After a reasonably cautious amount of silence, she slowly raised her head, fumbling with the straps of the protective mask covering her face through the fabric of her bronto hide welding gloves. Shaking the stray red strands out of her vision, she bent her head to examine the object in front of her. She winced at the heat emanating off the object in front of her. Stone, her father would have her head if he had seen her being so impatient in his forge.

One of the rare advantages of having given up the only life she had ever known in Orzammar for Kinloch Hold, him being thousands of miles away and deep underground and therefore not here to judge her.

This was the worst part, the not knowing. With all the help in a world, a dwarf couldn’t register the faintest trace of magic. The meter she pulled out from the drawer in a nearby cabinet lay silent. Tears pricking at the corners of her eyes, she tried to rein in her frustration. She had built it with her own two hands and no blueprints, had mages all the way from the lowliest apprentice to the first enchanter test it countless times without fail. Her research and theory put your average grand enchanter’s to shame. No sleep was spared in her dedication to her work, so why now of all---

She gasped aloud.

Slowly but surely, the needle twitched. Minutely, then swings, then great grand sweeps as she triumphantly held it over her creation. All her doubts, all her struggles, all her tears given worth.

Rapt with laugher, she raised it aloft.

She would need a new title. Not Dagna the dwarf, not Dagna the dreamer, not Dagna the fool. Chewing her lower lip, she thought for a moment. There was, of course, the old name from the long lost art….

Dagna.

Arcanist Dagna.

She liked the sound of that.

* * *

 

She hated running.

She hated hiding.

She hated cowering like frightened animals.

The knife sawing across the man’s throat gave her an adrenaline rush, her smirk twisting as she sliced through the soft flesh to the bone. He gurgled, fruitlessly clawing the air as the artery in his neck severed. Blood soaked the front of his clothes as he bled his last, then died. She stared back into the courtyard of the alienage, panting slightly. The pack on her back suddenly weighed eight stone. Tonight was meant to be a quiet exit, running away after a lifetime of being too hard for the elves, too soft and too scared for the humans. The roots of the vhenadahl chained her limbs to the fetid, festering existence her life had become.

“Gisa?”

The commotion must have woken her up. At the sight awaiting her, her hahren wrung her hands.

“Oh Gisa, what have you done?”

“Hahren—“

“I’ve told you countless times to rein in your temper, raise the alarm and hide, not give the shemlen a reason to murder us all in our beds. And the bann’s third son, too!”

“He deserved it.”

“How could you do this to us? I did my best, but we cannot protect you any—how can you not be upset at a time like this? This is the end of your life, da’len!”

“Doesn’t have to be.”

The biggest person she had ever seen in her life emerged from the shadows, grey-skinned and blue-eyed. The breadth of his horns just barely scraped through the gateway above their heads. He held up his hands as she tensed, her hahren drawing her sword.

“Easy. Just passing through.”

He spat on the ground in disgust.

“Basra vashedan. They get what’s coming to ‘em one way or another. Good on you for making sure of it.” 

Skinner arched a brow.

“Why help us?”

“I’ve seen how humans here treat elves when you stand up for yourselves. Figure you need all the help you can get.”

Taking a flask out of his pack, he dabbed a strong-smelling liquor onto the handkerchief. He blotted the dead man’s collar and the sides of his neck with it, then slipped it into his breast pocket.

“ _Et voila_. Now he’s a drunkard who walked down a dark alley into bad luck. We empty his purse, drag him further up and leave it on his chest, no one will miss him.”

She watched him intently, catching the purse he tossed to her.

“Keep the gold. Consider it a down payment.”

Ignoring the look on her hahren’s face, she followed him as he carried the body down the alley.

“Explain.”

“I run a mercenary company with a couple friends of mine called the Bull’s Chargers. A Fereldan healer who picks up a sword or a bow depending on the day and a Dalish archer whose archery looks like magic if you squint.”

He gestured towards himself.

 “I’m The Iron Bull, in case you hadn’t guessed. Your skill with a knife is worth its weight in gold and we both know you can’t stay here.”

Setting it down and arranging things, he dusted off his hands.

“We take payment upfront, we cover food, room, and board, and you get paid every two weeks.”

“And if this gets out?”

“We work in the hinterlands, not the border, and we lay low. You wouldn’t need to worry.”  

He walked back to the gate of the alienage with her in tow.

“We’re leaving at first light if you’re interested. If not, good luck all the same.”

“I’ll come.”

She blurted out, ignoring the anguish on her hahren’s face. Nothing for her here anymore, she reminded herself. The longer she stayed, the more of a danger she became. 

The Iron Bull nodded.

“We use nicknames. Keeps us all safer in the end. What’s yours? Gutter? Slicer?”

“No.”

Not Gisa, not da’len.

He grinned at her, white teeth glinting in the moonlight.

“Then who are you?”

She lifted her chin and stepped forward.

“Skinner. And you, my way out.”

* * *

 

The sheep bleated at the sound of approaching footsteps.

Head jerking up, Lace Harding jumped to her feet, bow at the ready. Foolish of her to nap against a rock with the templars and rebel mages swarming over the land like wasps, she scolded herself. That was how Dan over in the next village almost met his end. Arrow nocked, she sidled out from behind the rock. A group of scouts, led by an elven woman, came into view. She thought she recognized a couple of the soldiers accompanying them from nearby villages, Fereldan farm boys in dented plate armor and helmets handed down from the First Blight looking to gain glory and make a difference in the process.

She squinted.

She was right. Robert probably needed the glory, considering what his mum’s sister had said about his father’s niece who wasn’t speaking to his grandmother’s uncle and held a grudge against his sister’s husband. When he saw her, he ducked his head, cheeks flushed, and looked away. The elven woman didn’t break stride, heading northwest. An ewe wandered towards the party and only then did Lace remember the group of templars she had hidden from the other day. Hastily, she stowed her bow.  

Lunging forward, she scrambled down the bank.

“Wait! You can’t go there!”

 The elven woman stopped and turned to look at her.

“There’s a Templar camp half a mile out. You’ll walk right into the middle.”

She felt her gaze slowly drift from head to toe, but remained firm.

“You know this area well.”

The elven woman said thoughtfully.

“Lived here all my life, ma’am. All the mages and templars are outsiders just finding the places they think are safest.”

“So you know where they are?”

“Just about all of them, ma’am.”

She swallowed.

“If you’ve got a map, I could show you.”

The woman nodded and offered a hand to shake.

“My name is Charter. We’re with the Inquisition. We’ve come to stop the war between the mages and the templars and restore order to Thedas.”

“That’s a tall order.”

Lace said without thinking, then covered her mouth. Charter laughed.

“Difficult, but not impossible. If I come by here tomorrow with a map, will you be ready?”

Lace thought of the elderly neighbor keeping her curtains drawn every day, of her parents hesitating when she went out to tend the flock, of the fear that permeated her village and the hinterlands of Ferelden. No children played in the hills anymore and the families in the mountains cut themselves off completely. Someone ought to do something, she had heard muttered countless times in the aftermath of the Conclave. Taking a deep breath, she exhaled and squared her shoulders.

“Yes. I will be.”

 


End file.
